In fact the article is an example of the point it is making – namely, by choosing the keyword “Sarah Palin” it immediately becomes readable and, in the eyes of Google at least, potentially noteworthy.

Friendfeed is an aggregator of social network content that allows users to create feeds that pull updates from all kinds of social networking sources, social media, micro-blogging sites (such as Twitter), video sites (such as Youtube) and blogs (such as this one and millions of others).

Along with Facebook’s already developed real time search capabilities, Friendfeed will give Facebook a much greater reach and potentially give them control of a bigger chunk of the overall search market.

Facebook’s immediate target seems to be Twitter – which has also been developing a real time search engine. But Google will be influenced as well. The impact of sites like Twitter and Facebook is starting to make Google’s search territory look old school and even boring in comparison. As Facebook and Twitter become more viable search sources, Google’s stranglehold on that area will be threatened.

Microsoft/Bing/Yahoo are involved in this too, since Bing now provides search not only for Yahoo, but also for Facebook. For more details see Watch Out Twitter! Facebook Launches Realtime Search.

There’s no doubt Google is responding to pressure from Bing.com, the new improved Microsoft search engine which now has new legs since the deal with Yahoo.

They are also responding to the news that both Twitter and Facebook are coming out with their own search engines.

You can be sure the revamp of Google, the new Bing, and the new engines from Twitter and FB are going to change the role of search engine optimization somewhat.

If you have a website promoting local services (such as a local real estate site) it is difficult to compete with search engine optimization experts who have built sites targeting your most important keywords. These “experts” have no interest in serving your market with useful information. What they want is to gain local ranking so Google will send searchers to click on their pay per click ads.

It’s a free world, so people can do whatever they want with their websites. But it’s too bad Google has to reward website owners who play the game this way.

If you’re a local business person, you probably know how difficult it is to get good ranking for your most important keywords. Even if you focus your site on a local keyword like Leisure World homes for sale or Vancouver Real Estate you’re in for a battle.

That’s because search engine optimization (SEO) experts set up bogus re-direct sites that are in direct competition with yours for rankings. The purpose of these sites is to capture search engine rankings (and therefore search engine traffic) so they can send that traffic to pay per click ads or other money-making websites. The owners of these websites have no interest in actually providing services or original information about the markets they pretend to serve.

The little guy – like a local real estate agent, for example – doesn’t stand much of a chance against these “experts”. They usually own a large nest of sites where they can plant links that boost the rankings of their money-making redirect sites.

As I’ve said many times before, the blame for skewing search traffic like this has to be laid directly at the feet of the search engines themselves – especially Google – who makes tons of money from pay per click advertising that runs on these re-direct sites. They have always talked a good game when it comes to criticizing link farms, purchased links, etc. But have usually turned around and rewarded the practitioners of these techniques with rankings that resulted in healthy advertising returns.

Changes at Google

According to some observers Google is finally doing something about this. For example, see this blog post (and video) that discusses some of some of the changes coming to how Google ranks sites.

The big changes coming in the near future have to do with the importance of targeted traffic, the use of rich content such as video, and the gradual introduction of personalized search results based on user patterns and interests.

I’ve been doing SEO for a few years and concluded about two years ago that chasing after rankings using old-fashioned link building techniques is a mug’s game.

Instead, it gradually became obvious to me that the content of specific web pages should be what determines their position in the search engine pecking order. Not only did I consider it a bit dishonest to try building links the old-fashioned way, but I felt it was inevitable that the major search engines would eventually figure out better ways of ranking sites.

Right from the beginning the original developers of Google certainly agreed that “content is king”. But unfortunately they cashed this idea out in terms of inbound links. They assumed that a page about, say “dog training”, with many inbound dog training references (links) from other web sites is an important “dog training” resource, and deserves to be ranked higher when people search for “dog training”.

But as we all know, links can be manipulated. In the not so distant past an enterprising link building specialist could build a network of sites – especially blogs – and fill them with links to other sites they wanted to give a boost in the rankings.

For the most part it didn’t matter whether anybody ever looked at those sites, or whether actual traffic ever came from them.

Traffic a much better indicator

Of course search engine experts always claimed that the ultimate reason for link building was to generate traffic. But the focus for the last six or seven years has been on manipulating search engine rankings to generate traffic from search engines. Whether traffic came from the actual links on the linking sites was of secondary importance.

Getting traffic from the search engines has always been the rationale for spending time, energy and money on search engine optimization.

Having been involved in this game for a few years I find it interesting how many website owners now just take it for granted that search engines should be their primary source of traffic.

For instance, I occasionally suggest to a client that a better way to generate higher quality targeted traffic is to develop a client and prospect list and do regular emails to the list. The email messages can be used to drive traffic to an article, squeeze page or blog post. But often enough the response I get makes me wonder if I am talking Chinese.

Whether website owners understand it or not, many experts (myself included) think this is the way Google must go in the immediate future. As time goes by Google will be giving more and more credit to sites that already have targeted traffic and use interactive components that demonstrate visitor involvement. Things such as video content and blogs – both of which do a good job of tracking views and reader comments.

First, traffic is going to be taken much more seriously when calculating rankings. This will change SEM (Search Engine Marketing) a lot, because it will no longer just be a matter of optimizing on page text and building inbound links.

Google has been threatening this for a long time, but it seems in early 2009 they will begin implementing a system that ranks sites on the basis of traffic, bounce rates (how long visitors stay on your site), conversions, and other measures of visitor behaviour. The sites that offer engaging content based on an analysis of visitor behaviour will be the winners.

With the cooperation of web owners, the big G has been gradually building the system to gather this kind of information. It’s called Google Analytics which web owners install on their web pages or blogs. Analytics allows Google to track total traffic, quality of traffic, where visitors come from, how long visitors stay on your site, and much more. So it certainly seems that if G starts using this data you will have a definite advantage if you install Google Analytics – a convenient coincidence for Google, and one which promises to strengthen their hold on the search market even more.

Personalized Search Results

The other thing that is about to happen (according to Bruce Clay, a speaker at PubCon) is that search results will vary from person to person. Searching for something like “web marketing” may turn up one set of results for you and another set of results for me.  Your results will be based, at least partly, on your past search history – what type of sites you have visited, and what type of searches you have done.

This will also make it difficult to track the results of SEO programs, and will force SEM specialists to refocus their efforts. They will have to get much more serious about meaningful traffic building, and the implementation of effective systems to keep visitors on client sites and convert them into subscribers or customers.

Resources:
Will Personal Search Turn SEO On Its Ear?

I’m talking about business blogs here – blogs used to enhance your corporate image, improve communication between you and your clients, expand on product features and benefits, or collect input and opinions from visitors.

You can’t do any of these things effectively with a normal – even a nicely designed static website. But with a blog it is fairly easy. The key, of course, is to create quality content that your readers are interested in reading. And then invite their feedback.

The SEO advantages of doing this are a slightly different matter, a bit more obscure and harder for many people to grasp. When all is said and done, SEO is all about keywords. Search Engine Optimization amounts to the systematic and disciplined use of specific keywords in the most advantageous places within your web content.

In other words, the point of SEO is to give the search engines a clear idea of what each web page, article, video, press release, etc. is about. This will help you move up in the high stakes game of search engine results, make you visible to the right people, and drive traffic to your site.

Creating a blog increases your odds in the search engine traffic game. There are a number of reasons…

1. Because your blog is being updated on a regular basis the search engines will visit more often, and if your content is deemed worthy of attention, your posts will start appearing in search engine results very quickly.

2. If you are using your blog effectively you will be creating posts once a day, or every few days, and you will be be discussing a series of issues or providing information about a fairly narrow subject area -in my case, for example, about “local business marketing”. The cumulative effect of regularly creating content focusing on a narrow, well-defined area is to gradually establish your blog as a worthwhile source of information on your chosen topic – what Google calls an “authority”. The more authoritative your site or blog becomes, the better it will do in search engine results.

3. The fact that you are creating new pages (for the search engines each post is considered a “page”) means that you can cover a wider range of keywords. If you watch the sources of your search traffic you will notice that people find you by searching for a very large number of keyword phrases, variations and combinations. Creating posts on a regular basis lets you “optimize” each of them for different keywords. Hopefully they will all be related to your primary area, but they will also let you expand your focus somewhat.

For example, a website about SEO may contain several pages discussing the merits of search engine optimization, and the specific methods you employ to enhance a client’s search engine rankings. SEO theory suggests each of those pages should focus on a fairly narrow set of keywords.

But if you have a blog about SEO you can create a virtually unlimited range of pages about different aspects of SEO:

Onpage SEO
SEO and traffic
Offpage SEO
SEO and links
SEO and Wordpress
SEO and Blogs
Article marketing SEO
SEO and video

And unlike with normal website pages you can be very specific in your focus:

The best SEO Wordpress plugins
Can Search Engine Optimization Turn Your Business Around
SEO and Corporate Blogging
etc., etc.

All of this amounts to saying that dollar for dollar, a blog has much more SEO potential than a standard website. That does not mean you should abandon your standard, relatively static website, because there are some things that blogs (so far) don’t do very well. But it certainly suggests a blog can be a powerful weapon in your overall strategy to win in the online marketing game.

Learn how to write page titles that will rank well in Google and make people click through to your site.

Tips on how to do keyword research for search engine optimization to help ensure your site ranks well in search engines like Google.

http://www.thirtydaychallenge.com/tdc/day03/ How to conduct an SEO competition analysis using the Market Samurai research tool: http://www.thirtydaychallenge.com/tdc/day03/